The third annual Conference on Innovations in Trauma Research Methods (CITRM), will be held November 2006 at the BelAge Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif.. The theme of CITRM 2006 is Research Methods for Prevention, Intervention, and Service DeliveryinPsychological Trauma. Those planning to attend ISTSS in Hollywood might wish to enhance their professional and scientific expe­rience by attending both CITRM (November 3-4) and the ISTSS 2006 Annual Meeting (November 4-7), also in Hollywood.

Paula Schnurr, PhD, will present the PlenaryAddresson methodological issues in conducting psychotherapy research. Dr. Schnurr is one of the leading figures in the field of trau­matic stress. She is editor, Journal of Traumatic Stress, former president of ISTSS, deputy executive director, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD, and research professor, Dartmouth University Medical School.

Dr. Schnurr has published widely in all areas of traumatic stress. She has conducted multiple large random­ized trials of psychotherapy for PTSD and developed important methods to address choice of compar­ison treatment, assignment of thera­pists to groups to minimize therapist effects, and monitoring of treatment fidelity.

Philip Lavori, PhD, will speak on New Ideas in Clinical Trial Design: Equipoise Stratification and Adaptive Treatment Strategies. Dr. Lavori is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine.

He has pioneered innovations in clinical trial design and has worked closely with behavioral scientists to incorporate those designs into studies of mental health outcomes, including the landmark STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment Alternative to Relieve Depression) trial, recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Other conference highlights include special sessions on the use of propen­sity scores to address confounding in treatment research and strategies to boost adherence in medical trials and psychosocial intervention research. Submitted papers and posters will serve to round out the program’s broad emphasis on sampling, design, measurement and data analysis tech­niques for trauma researchers.

As in previous years, CITRM offers the opportunity for underrepresented researchers to apply for Travel Stipends, which provide funds to offset the costs of attending. The Travel Stipend is available to both experienced researchers (persons in their fifth or higher year after com­pleting all training) and novice researchers. This is in order to recog­nize the contributions of and leader­ship provided by those underrepresented individuals who are seasoned in the field, as well as to expose per­sons early in their career to the con­tent offered by CITRM.

“Under-represented” is defined here by any one of three major qualifications: (1) being a member of a rec­ognized North American ethnic or racial minority group; (2) being legally physically disabled; or (3) being a citizen or permanent resident of countries designated by the World Bank as having national economies (rather than individual income) in the low income, lower middle income, or upper middle income categories.

CITRM is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. Additional support comes from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Massachusetts Veterans Epidemiology Research and Information Center (MAVERIC), and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

CITRM is an outgrowth of the Research Methodology Special Interest Group of ISTSS and is endorsed by the leadership of ISTSS. Visit www.citrm.org for the latest infor­mation on the conference.